


That escalated quickly

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, lift fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 23:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy and Oliver get stuck in a Ministry lift (with seven other people present).</p>
            </blockquote>





	That escalated quickly

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I'm so sorry for the title.
> 
> 2) Wesley is an OC from a longer story. No prior knowledge is needed to understand this fic, but essentially he was one of the Gryffindors in Percy and Oliver's year at Hogwarts and is Oliver's best friend.
> 
> 3) This fic is slightly AU in the sense that all wars, Voldemorts and possible deaths are completely ignored.
> 
> 4) I'm kind of hoping everyone decides to overlook the Oliver and Wesley sized plothole that appeared when I accidentally forgot to give them a reason for being at the Ministry. Something to do with Quidditch? Picking up a friend for a late lunch? Riding random lifts in hopes of one day encountering a group of Weasleys? Who knows. I don't, so feel free to make up your own convoluted explanation.
> 
> 5) I really hope I didn't just put everyone off this fic. It's not as terrible as the outdated Tumblr meme title makes it sound.

There were over twenty lifts in the Ministy, but somehow George managed to pick smallest one. Percy suspected he hadn’t even done it on purpose this time. That only made it worse.

“I think I’ll wait for the next one,” Charlie said, once Fred, George, Percy, Ron, Bill and Ginny had squeezed themselves into the small space, accompanying the two unfortunate passengers already in the lift when the Weasley clan turned up. Percy idly wondered what the weight limit was for small lifts like the one they were testing at that very moment, but he dared not look around for a sign. He was not prepared to risk losing the little room for breathing that was still available to him, nor was he willing to move away from the buttons. Technically Ministry lifts didn’t stop at the Department of Mysteries, but with the twins, one could never be sure.

“No way,” Ginny said. She grabbed Charlie and pulled him into a hug. 

Percy had never expected to ever develop such feelings of sympathy for canned tuna. 

“You’re not getting out of this. We’re already late and if we don’t hurry, dad’ll be on his way home before we get there. Bill, pull in your arse so the doors can close properly.”

“There’s nothing about my arse to be pulled in,” Bill said, a little hurt.

“Of course there is,” Fred said. “We have faith in you.”

“It’s good to know you haven’t changed a bit since Hogwarts,” said a non-Weasley out of the blue. 

A few seconds of silence followed, during which everyone tried to stand on tip-toes to look over shoulders and red hair and catch a glance of the person that had spoken. Then there was a lot of noise at once. The twins cheered, the lift doors slid shut with a _ding_ , Bill gasped when he found out there had in fact still been something about his arse to pull in, and Wesley Westenberg, who had once been one of Percy’s dormmates in Gryffindor, grinned and said: “Greetings, family consisting of near-namesakes.” 

“Wesley!” Fred yelled, far too loud for a space the size of a broom cupboard, and at nearly the same time and exactly the same volume, George happily exclaimed, “Oliver!”

This last bit was what really grabbed Percy’s attention. He had already pushed the button for the right floor, so he chose to take the risk and shuffled and pushed until he had turned a hundred and eighty degrees and his nose was no longer nearly touching the wall. Instead it was now alarmingly close to, indeed, Oliver Wood. “Oliver,” he repeated, at a far more reasonable volume for broom cupboards and possibly a bit too much like the release of a long-held sigh.

“Percy,” Oliver said, going with the trend of saying names out loud for seemingly no reason at all. Oliver smiled and Percy felt a little dizzy, although the speed the lift was moving at might have been to blame for that. “It’s great to see you. I was hoping I’d bump into you some day.”

There were many things Percy had expected of Oliver, based on his knowledge obtained over seven years of sharing a dormitory. This list did not include _is great at Divination_ , and yet exactly this suddenly seemed to be the case, because Oliver had not finished speaking the last syllable of his sentence or the lift jolted to a halt and Percy quite unexpectedly found himself with two arms full of suntanned Quidditch player. Oliver might not have meant what he said about bumping quite this literally. 

“Shit, sorry,” Oliver said, unintentionally laying claim to so much of Percy’s attention he barely even heard the rather dramatic cries of his brothers around him or Ginny’s loud cursing. “Are you okay?”

The answer was a resounding yes. Percy had been flung against the wall at impact, but he hadn’t been hurt. On top of that, Oliver was now on top of him, bracketing him with a strong hand against the wall on either side of him, preventing him from moving away even if there had been room for escape attempts. Percy was a little more than okay. He nodded weakly.

“Why won’t the doors open?” Ron asked, a note of hysteria lacing his voice.

Percy blinked a few times, instinct to reassure his younger siblings kicking in automatically, and twisted his neck to look up at the display above the button panel, which was built into the wall a scant inch from Oliver’s right pinkie finger. It was blinking on and off, alternating between _whoopsydaisy_ and _~~Department of~~ Magical Accident ~~s and Catastrophes~~_. Percy approved wholeheartedly of the efficient use of magical text to convey the relevant information, but was nonetheless not very encouraged by this.

“It appears we are stuck for the moment.”

“Grand,” Ginny said. The layer of sarcasm she had meant to add to those words was nearly lost because she was attempting to pull her own hair out of her mouth while avoiding elbowing any of her brothers in the face or chest. “What do we do now?”

Percy made the mistake of looking at Oliver while trying to verbalise his answer. He immediately returned his gaze to the ceiling. “There is not much to be done besides wait. Magical Maintenance will solve this problem shortly, I’m sure.”

This caused a bit of a commotion, during which Oliver seemed to receive a push from behind. Oliver’s chest bumped into Percy’s before he was able to catch himself again. Percy put his hands on Oliver’s hips. Not because he wanted to, but because it seemed like the best way to save space. That was what this was all about, after all. Saving space.

“Wes,” Oliver said, “watch where you wave your arms.”

“I’m sorry,” Wesley said. He shot Percy an apologetic look over Percy’s shoulder, eyes wide and innocent. “I hope Oliver didn’t crush you.”

“Hey, be careful with my little brother,” Charlie cautioned.

Fred couldn’t agree more. “Better treat him with care, Oliver. Percy just broke up with his boyfriend.”

Percy stared at the ceiling a little more intently than before. It was a beautiful ceiling, really. It was extraordinarily… grey. A grey that really popped in comparison to other mixtures of black and white. This was clearly the greyest. 

“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” he said, because while that would only lead to more ceilingstaring, it was still preferable to a silence that was completely devoid of anything to distract him from Oliver’s curious eyes searching his face.

“Exactly,” George chimed in. “Fred, you should know this. He was just a bloke who regularly slept in Percy’s bed.”

Fred nodded apologetically. “I’m sorry, Percy, I really should have known.”

“Oh, Merlin’s frilly underpants.” Ron sounded partly grudgingly impressed and partly like he’d never wished more fervently that he had been born as an only child. “I don’t want to know _how_ you should have known.”

“We’re not doing anything illegal,” Fred and George chorused.

Bill let out a sigh. As the eldest, it was his job to frown about this exchange. Nobody saw him, because his back was turned to most of them, but it was a matter of principle. “Why do I get the feeling you’re doing something illegal? Please don’t do anything illegal to Percy. Mum will skin you and that won’t be a nice birthday present for dad.”

Oliver was still looking at Percy. “I thought-” he began, but he cut himself off. Going by how red he suddenly looked, he had stopped just in time to prevent sharing whatever it was he had thought with an entire lift full of people who did not need to know these details. Not that Percy was in any position to judge how much Oliver was blushing, seeing as he was definitely not looking at or anywhere near Oliver. Ceiling, ceiling. Grey. Wow.

Wesley petted Oliver’s shoulder, but carefully, this time. “I hate reminding people I was right, but Oliver, mate, I was right.”

Percy had run out of ways to deny that he was not really interested in the colour grey. Oliver’s pained expressions ten centimetres in front of him were infinitely more fascinating. “Right?”

“Never mind. You know how Wes can be,” Oliver said. Just as Percy had given up on trying to find anything interesting on the ceiling, he seemed to have suddenly developed an interest for the very top parts of the inside of elevators.

Ginny clearly wasn’t listening to Oliver. “Please, Percy, everyone knows Oliver fancied you when you were at Hogwarts.”

“Those are my lines,” Wesley said, somewhere far in the background.

Ever further away was Charlie, triumphantly. “I knew it!”

The only thing that didn’t seem to be at a great distance from Percy was Oliver, who had given up on studying ceilings just as suddenly as he had started and was now staring at the tip of Percy’s nose, looking nervous. _Nervous._ Percy licked his dry lips. Oliver’s focus was very obviously drawn to the movement and Percy could only hope he was slightly better at hiding the butterflies in his own stomach. “Is this true?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Oliver said.

“Yes,” said Wesley. Percy ignored him.

“You could have said something.”

“It’s just,” Oliver stammered, “I mean- You seemed so into Penny. I thought you liked girls.”

“I do. Just not exclusively.”

“Oh.”

“I thought _you_ only liked girls.”

Oliver shook his head. “I’ve clearly fallen for you. Or against you, anyhow.”

“Oh,” Percy echoed.

“So,” Oliver began, the very picture of fake nonchalance, “this bloke who regularly slept in your bed, is he still around?”

All these attempts at flirting were atrocious, very terrible, and corny, but that was all right. Percy’s own answer was just as bad. He’d have time to worry about that later. Doing so right then and there would have been a complete waste of this perfect opportunity to move his hands from Oliver’s hips to his shoulders and feel Oliver shiver. “I think he might be right in front of me,” he said.

There was a sound as if someone had just hit their head against a wall. The only thing that mattered to Percy was that this person was not Oliver. Oliver, going utterly against all expectations anyone of sound mind might have had in this situation, only smiled. “We’ll see.”

“Guys, please get a room,” Wesley said. “Preferably one lacking seven other people uncomfortably pretending they can’t hear or see you.”

The lift jolted, as if protesting the very idea that any of them would ever see rooms other than the one they were trapped in ever again. The next moment they were moving smoothly. Everyone held their breath when the lift came to a halt again.

A second _ding_ sounded and Bill reflexively rubbed his own behind at the memory. The doors slid open. They revealed not just freedom, but also a perplexed Arthur Weasley, who had been on his way home and was wearing a party hat proclaiming him to be _50!!!_ If he had wanted to fit into this particular lift, however, he would either have to have tried crowdsurfing, or have had the foresight to conceive fewer children. 

Nobody quite knew where Fred had hidden the confetti cannon, and yet there were suddenly bits of colourful paper raining down on Mr. Weasley. “Happy Birthday! Our first present is a brand new son in law.”

George let a second of silence pass for dramatic effect. “I don’t think Percy would be pleased if you unwrapped this particular present.”

Percy was unable to produce a retort. He was far too wrapped up in Oliver, Oliver’s mouth on his, and their joined efforts to completely ignore all of Wesley’s friendly advice.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I love, love, love comments.
> 
> (I also feel like I should probably apologise for the inevitable mistakes/definitely-not-British bits I didn't catch while editing. English isn't my first language. Feel free to point out any odd things you might have noticed and I'll do my best to make them less odd.)


End file.
